First off just wanaetd to say Hi. Now I came here for some advices on what DVD to buy. I am particularly interested in the new BenQ 1640 or the GSA - 4163, although the 1640 is a much newer one from a technological point of view.

I did a google on 1640 problems and other then the lack of Mt. Rainer ( witch I still don't know what it realy does) I realy did not find any REAL problems and I see that it is recomended by tom's hardware and CDRInfo's editor's chioce.and others.

Definetely the 1640. I'm giving you this advice because i own one, and because i also seen many people that have 4163b's, that are very good drives, but the benq can do even better, and many other reasons. Benq all the way. You can find it at emag.ro. That's were i got mine. And by the way, the mount rainer is very rarely seen on dvd-rw drives, and trust me, it's not a big deal. It is used for using drag and drop (copy and paste) with cd-rw media. So, i suggest you to go for the 1640, but if you want to wait for the next dvd-rw series like the lg gsa4167, or the pioneer dvd-110, and you don't have ~80$ to buy a DVD-RW drive, than you'll be wasting time, because those will be the prices.

Well that's good to hear. If you would have told me two years ago that there are DVD wreiters better than TEAC ( witch is still ninja in the CDRW market )(and Plextor also) I would have been a little skeptical.